Hello! I often spend my time in the studio musing almost mindlessly into the microphone – it’s like achieving a sort of flow, if you will (I understand if you won’t) – but it’s easy to let curation slip through the cracks when you never have to come into contact with your monologue again. Blogging, however, forces me to stare my thoughts and opinions in the eyes. A face off between my ideas and me. This quarter, we have made the full transition from radio stream to blog in response to the restrictions we’re facing during the COVID crisis, and I’m excited to continue to muse to and with you, even through a more static medium.

My focus in music has been blurred during this strange time. Days of the week have all but lost their meaning, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to question the boundaries we’ve set up for ourselves in this strange world we live in. I could type about it forever (while Nostalgia Ultra by Frank Ocean littered with YouTube ads plays in the background,) letting my fingers get buff while they dance on the keyboard for hours, but I will zone in on music. First off, I’ll offer that I do not think we have enough names for genres. We take the same fifty words and mix them together until out pops something just descriptive enough to slide. I am not proposing a solution. Maybe our Music Director has one. Second, there is a whole string of politics to those descriptions that perpetuate the marginalization of communities (think Tyler the Creator’s 2020 Grammy acceptance speech about the terms “rap” and “urban”.) Believe me, I am not proposing we eradicate the use of genre terms as a whole, they’re necessary to differentiate between artists, focuses, movements, communities, cultures and evolutions, but the progression of music today is stretching, challenging these boundaries and begging for new vocabulary. It’s beautiful to watch artists collaborate to stretch traditional limits, making and consuming exceedingly promiscuous music, and more and more of our libraries oozing into the “alternative” category. We’re entering a phase of post-genre where most music-oriented people, when asked their preferences, offer “oh, I listen to everything except country!” Sort of like folding a paper in half to establish lines in the pages, if you keep folding it, the crumples will blend together and the lines will be obsolete. Purists loyal to their genres are fighting to maintain what they see as the integrity of music – artists and listeners alike are entitled to hold their values close – but there is something to be said about how such divisions got there in the first place. 

Particular types of music come from particular communities, like rap and jazz are rooted in American black culture, ska comes from Jamaica, folk originates in the United Kingdom, and rock as we know it today evolved from the 1960s and 70s rock boom in California’s Laurel Canyon. Genres are rooted in difference between people, and that is okay. Difference, diversity and labels allow us our identities. However, tolerance and celebration have to transcend the lines we’ve drawn in the sand culturally to feel comfortable in the days behind us, and the mixing, sampling and blending of genre can be a tool to instigate greater collaboration and understanding between people and culture.

I am musing about this not because I want to point out the obvious, natural evolution of music most listeners are already aware of, but to suggest that this might be a Renaissance. There is an overwhelming number of heavy things to be concerned about today but there is a lot of hope directly ahead of us – if nowhere else, at least in our music.

Here are a few songs on my radar this week.

Strawberry Privilege - Yves Tumor

Love Crimes - Frank Ocean

Harunatsuakifuyu - Ichiko Aoba (found on Rainy Dawg Weekly!)

My Blueberry Life (Demo) - Current Joys

Trouble On the Water (Acoustic) - Palace

Somthing’s Missing - the Internet

Slug - Snail Mail

Calico Skies - Paul McCartney

Conversations (Alternate) - Far Caspian

Montego Slay - People Under the Stairs